Safety First
by daryoo
Summary: Some quirks are powerful enough to leave enemies completely incapacitated after a single hit, finishing the job in a flash. The problem, however, lies when a quirk attacks indiscriminately without any regard for alliances. The Stun Gun Hero has always worried about accidentally hurting his friends during battle-especially near water. [One-shot] [rated T for mild swearing]


The first discovery of one's quirk is either a celebrated experience or a day better left forgotten. This was especially true for quirks with the potential to hurt others.

Denki Kaminari had discovered his quirk on his fifth birthday, the first and last pool party he'd ever had. His friends had long left for their homes, the day almost over. Kaminari was still soaking wet when he was called inside for dinner.

All he'd done was reach for the lightswitch. A tiny spark was all it took to fry his brain- the first of many times- and nearly blow up every appliance in his house.

He learned a very important lesson that day: water was extremely conductive and extremely unpredictable.

Class 1A was having another lesson at USJ. Everyone gathered around the flood zone, intently observing the current groups as they tried to complete their match.

The activity? King of the Castle. All Might once again separated his class into teams of "Heroes" and "Villains", with Heroes being given the task of defending the massive water slide at the back end of the flood zone. Villains won if they could get both Heroes back into the lake within 15 minutes.

"Remember, there's always room for creativity," All Might told them.

Iida had long been defeated and trapped in a block of ice floating back to shore, all hope for escape thrown out the window. His partner on the other hand? Well, if you can't see your target you can't necessarily grab hold of them. Kaminari watched as Todoroki and Shouji struggled rather comically to get Hagakure down from the slide, wherever she was. It took only a few more minutes of fruitless searching to realize that they weren't going to get anywhere _close_ to victory.

The timer set off and All Might called them back to shore. On his way back Todoroki stopped to unfreeze Iida and pulled him aboard his frozen ice bridge along with the others.

"This was a victory for the Heroes," All Might said, handing the four of them towels. He walked over to the team boxes and pulled out two random balls. "Next up we have team C against team J. Asui and Sero are the Villains, while Uraraka and Kaminari are the Heroes."

Team J nodded and made their way to the slide, Tsuyu pulling Sero behind her on account of her increased mobility.

Uraraka turned to Kaminari with a determined grin on her face. "Our quirks may be at a disadvantage here, but let's give it our all!"

"Hehe, yeah let's give it our all," Kaminari said, forcing himself to sound cheerful. Truth was, he'd nearly panicked when All Might announced the location of their activity. The whole ordeal couldn't have been any worse for Kaminari unless the Villain Alliance themselves swooped in to attack again.

"Are the two of you ready to begin your round?" All Might asked.

 _No_ , Kaminari thought.

He nodded regardless. No use in wimping out and putting their grades on the line.

"The timer is set to 15 minutes." He pressed the button, officially starting their battle.

"Alright," Kaminari said, "I propose you make the two of us float and then we'll just propel ourselves all the way to the slide."

Uraraka tried to hide her grimace at the prospect of so much time using her quirk. "Are you sure? That's a lot of distance to cover and I'm still not used to using my quirk on people. I don't think I'll have the stomach to be of any use after lifting both of us there."

She had a point. It was selfish of Kaminari to make such a strenuous request of her, but it was worth a shot. Uraraka couldn't see it, but Kamari's hands were already sparking up a storm in his pockets.

"Well, what if you make only one of us float? Do you think you can handle that weight?"

"I could try," she said. "It's easier to make others float than it is to make myself float, so maybe I could just use my quirk on you while I swim."

 _Sorry about this, I really owe you one._

"Then let's get this show on the road!"

Uraraka tapped Kaminari and he was suddenly weightless. She grabbed onto his jacket before he could float away.

"I can keep you up for a couple minutes, but there's not much I can do to increase your forward momentum. Though if we can figure something out you'll definitely get there faster by water," she said.

"Toss me."

"Huh?"

"Toss me. Pretend I'm a football or something, I'll just Peter-Pan my way there. Just don't put me in the lake."

She was going to say something about his last comment, but the clock was ticking. It could wait. She wound her arms back and tossed Kaminari forward as hard as she could.

At first it was admittedly pretty fun. Turns out Uraraka was stronger than she looked- much stronger. With the help of his reduced weight, she'd managed to push Kaminari almost halfway across the lake.

However, from that point forward things were beginning to get a bit complicated. Kaminari was going at a much slower rate, if moving at all. He was floating upward more than he was moving forward, which spelled trouble unless he could get down from there without landing in the water.

 _Shit, I should have thought this through,_ he thought.

"Kaminari, you're going too high!" Uraraka called from behind. "If I don't release you'll just hit the ceiling."

Wait, the ceiling...that was it!

He looked up to make sure his assumption was correct. Luckily, it was; the USJ ceiling was made of sweet, glorious metal.

Despite being a better conductor than water, Kaminari felt that he had a little more control over what his electricity did when he came in contact with metal. Sure, it gave him a power high like nobody's business, but beams and cables offered a much clearer path.

"Uraraka, I have a plan!" he called down. His partner was starting to look like an ant from his height. He hoped she could still understand what he was yelling.

Uraraka stopped swimming, which was enough indication for him that she could at least hear his voice.

Kaminari finally hit the ceiling. From his vantage point he could barely make out class 1A by the shore. The slide was not lost to him however, massive as it was. He eyed it carefully, looking for something that could connect the structure to his soon-to-be weapon.

To his joy the slide was anchored off to the far wall of the building with metal support beams meant to prevent any toppling.

"Jackpot."

Kaminari's quirk was a double edged sword. He was a living taser, sure, but push it a little too far and he was practically a walking punching bag. He lived for the precise moment before going derp, however; it was a feeling like no other, a blissful moment where he felt like he could do anything with that much power.

It was great- until he blacked out of course. Countless doctors and quirk counselors had warned him about what going over his wattage could mean long-term.

 _You could risk turning yourself into a vegetable permanently,_ they'd said.

But he never listened. If was going to _be_ someone at UA, there just wasn't any other way. He was already so far behind his classmates, and unless he gave it his all, unless he went beyond, there was just no way he could catch up to the others and earn himself the same title as the prodigies around him.

USJ was bursting with energy in an instant. The zap wasn't enough to super-charge the building completely, but every square inch of metal was at least humming with a bit of electricity.

And then Thought Central™ was out. The burst was enough to not only fry his brain, but also drain his energy completely. The flash was dead almost as quickly as it arrived.

Kaminari was back on land when he came to. He was sitting down with his classmates back at the edge of the lake while two other teams tried to finish their round.

His thoughts were still lagging a bit, but at least he was cohesive enough to somewhat know what was going on.

Uraraka was by his side, towel wrapped around both of them. It took him a while to realize that he was wet too, and almost went into a panic.

 _Wait, if I'd hurt anybody they'd probably be at Recover Girl's by now,_ he reminded himself.

"Hey, you're back," Uraraka said.

"Unfortunately so," Jirou said teasingly. She was sitting at his other side, though not as close.

"D-did we win?" he asked.

"You almost destroyed the building's entire electrical system and you're concerned about _that_?" Jirou said.

"I'd say it's a valid question," Uraraka said. "And yes, we did. We could all hear the charge before it actually reached anyone, so Tsuyu and Sero abandoned ship before they got shocked."

"That's good."

"Yeah, we almost didn't get down on time," Tsuyu said, walking over to the trio. "Considering we didn't know how strong it was, we could have easily been killed on the spot, ribbit."

Kaminari yelped. Well, maybe he should have said something before charging the building.

"Don't worry, it actually wasn't that bad," Sero said apologetically. "I fell into the water trying to tear my out of my tape web and accidentally bumped into one of the slide's beams on my way down. It did hurt a bit but I guess your wattage kinda just weakened out across so much distance."

He didn't know whether to be relieved that his attack couldn't really injure anyone, or disappointed that his extreme efforts were so weak when actually put to use.

"The Villains once again reclaim victory," All Might announced, a bit pained to have to say the phrase.

Kaminari turned back to the lake to try to see which team won this round. He could make out a familiar flash of pink being hoisted up by Dark Shadow at the base of the slide.

"Hey, Kaminari? I wanted to ask you something," Uraraka said once Tsuyu and Sero left their side. "Why were you trying so hard not to get in the water?"

"Oh uh, no reason. I was just thinking about All Might's advice to be creative, is all," he said.

Uraraka didn't seem to bite, but she didn't push further either.

The two sat together for the remainder of class in silence, watching the rest of the groups slowly but surely finish their activity. When it was finally time to leave and board the bus once more, they split back to their usual social groups without another word on the matter.

"So, you got a thing for Uraraka now?" Jirou said.

"W-what? Jirou, no way!" Kaminari said. "Where did you even get that idea from?"

"Well, you two seemed awfully chummy after your match. There were more than enough towels for everyone and you two just _happened_ to have to share one?"

"I was zapped senseless, I didn't really have much of a say in the matter in the first place."

Jirou snickered and shrugged. "Alright then. But a fair warning: I know you'll flirt with just about anything that moves, but I've got a feeling Uraraka's already taken."

C'mon, he didn't come off as _that_ desperate when he flirted, did he? And besides, he knew Uraraka was totally off the radar anyways- for several reasons.

"Moving on," Jirou said, "I heard it was supposed to rain pretty soon."

 _Shit_

"Don't worry, Yaoyorozu has you covered." She bent down and pulled out a small umbrella from her seat's under basket. "Asked her to make this as soon as I found out. You're welcome."

"Thanks Jirou, don't know what I'd do without you," he said, taking the yellow umbrella.

"Hm, probably electrocute everyone within a half-mile radius."

"Hey, don't joke about that!"

"Well you _are_ clumsy."

Just as Jirou had warned, it was already raining by the time they got back to Heights Alliance. His umbrella guarded him from the water, but it still wasn't enough to keep stray sparks from dancing on his skin.

 _Almost there_

Kaminari loved rain, especially thunderstorms. The problem however was experiencing them around people; it was just too risky for him to be outside in the company of others during a storm. The smallest slip up and he could end up injuring his own friends.

He quickly went to his room to change out of his hero costume while the rest of his class stayed behind calling dibs on the various leftovers in the fridge. He wasn't very hungry anyways, so he'd manage to wait a bit for dinner.

Barefoot and clad in nothing more than a tee shirt and shorts, Kaminari took the elevator to the top floor. Their building didn't exactly have roof access, but he'd learned a thing or two about climbing from his classmates.

He jumped onto the frame of the hallway window and twisted his way out, trying not to lose his footing and potentially fall to his death. Then he worked his way up to the roof of the building.

A few moments of fresh rain and his quirk was already growing a mind of his own. In dry weather, he'd occasionally let up an unwilling spark or two whenever he felt anxious or excited. In wet weather, though, it was as if the reigns were no longer his at all. The area around him suddenly became a field of electricity, both daunting and exciting at the same time. It wasn't even a conscious thing- he just happened to turn into a lightning rod when it rained.

Kaminari didn't drink, but he assumed the blissful, sense-numbing euphoria he felt during these rainy trips to the roof was what drunkenness felt like. The sudden surge in power was just enough to put him in that sweet spot right before going derp, when he could savor the buzz without actually putting himself above his wattage limit.

"I could get used to this," he mumbled, eyes closed and arms outstretched.

But all good things must come to an end, as they say. A rather unfortunate flash of lightning gave little warning as it struck Kaminari. The charge suddenly became too much, too fast. The bliss was gone and replaced by a struggle to both keep himself from blacking out and from turning into a power bomb if he were to lose his grip.

 _Just...gotta...keep it together...a little...longer_

He was already losing it.

Despite the crackling energy and growing fogginess in his brain, Kaminari could hear someone calling him.

"K-m-a-ri"

 _Can't...go derp..._

"K-n-ri"

 _Useless...on my own….it'll just make things...worse_

How long had he been up there already? It could've been hours since he was struck but there was no way he could tell. It all just started blending together until he was sure he was about ready to black out and lose his grip on the immense electricity he was fighting to contain.

"w-'re go-g t- h-p"

 _Is someone….is someone there?_

"G-get out of here," Kaminari slurred. " 'ts too dangerous. P-please."

Something _whooshed_ past him. He felt the electricity from his veins sucked right out of him in an instant. The sudden vacancy left him too weak to stand on his own. The world went dark.

Bright sterile lights greeted Kaminari as he came to. He blinked wearily until he realised he was lying in one of the school's infirmary beds, decided the ceiling lights were a little too much of an eyesore to handle at the moment, and closed his eyes again.

As hard as he tried, he couldn't recall how he'd ended up in Recovery Girl's care. His head felt like a bowl of scrambled eggs and his body felt as if it'd been used as a chew toy.

He groaned under the pain of his injuries. Someone tried putting a hand on him, only to quickly pull away when a stray buzz of energy briefly shocked them.

"What the hell happened?" Kaminari asked, though not necessarily to anyone in particular.

"Looks like you got struck by lightning, sweetie," Recovery Girl told him. "Patched you right up, though."

Now that she mentioned it, Kaminari did vaguely recall climbing to the roof at some point in the night.

"You're lucky Uraraka had the sensibility to try to get you out of there, or else I'm not sure you would've been able to handle that much energy," she continued.

"Wait, why Uraraka?" he asked, though still refusing to get up.

"I was looking for you last night and Kirishima told me to check the roof."

Kaminari opened his eyes again and turned to see his classmate sitting next to him. She looked exhausted, hair disheveled and still in pajamas.

"Why….were you looking for me?" he asked. They weren't exactly close or anything, so it struck him as weird that she'd be the one pulling him out of trouble this time.

"I-I, uh, wanted to talk about our Heroics match again." He could have sworn she was blushing in embarrassment. "I'm probably being annoying about it, but I know you were lying when I asked earlier and I wanted to make sure everything was fine."

So she'd seen through the way he tried to play it off?

"It's nothing, Uraraka. Really. Don't stress about it." He could just tell her. But maybe he'd only manage to make himself sound paranoid.

"Is it because of your quirk?" She stopped him before he could derail the topic. "It's because you can't control the path of your electricity, isn't it?"

"I'll just leave you two alone," Recovery Girl said as she left the room.

"Well. Yeah. I mean, you saw how bad it was on the roof, one shock too many while I was wet and I almost blew up the entire building."

"You're better at keeping it under control than you think, Denki," Uraraka said. "I found you a couple minutes after we all heard the bang and the whole time you were fighting as if your life depended on it."

"Wait, _what?_ How long were you up there? Recover Girl made it sound like you found me after I'd gone stupid, she never said you were actually _there!"_

"Wait, you don't remember?"

The door to the nurse's office suddenly flew open.

"Hey, look who's up!" Kirishima and Sero practically ran inside, Bakugou not too far behind.

"Guys, Recovery Girl _literally_ just told us to wait a couple minutes before going in," Ashido said from the back of the group.

"Hey man, are we interrupting something?" Kirishima asked. "You know what, maybe we should just-"

"It's fine Kirishima," Uraraka said, "I was about to explain to Kaminari what happened last night."

"Oh yeah, what _did_ happen?" Kirishima asked.

"The numbskull fried his fucking brain again, idiot," Bakugou said.

Uraraka rolled her eyes with her best ' _I seriously can't believe you put up with this'_ expression.

"Still have no idea what's going on," Kaminari said under his breath.

"Well, I tried looking for you after I'd changed and gotten dinner," Uraraka said. "You didn't seem to be in your bedroom or the common room, so I asked Kirishima and he told me about your roof trips."

"We were hanging out by the tv and then we heard a huge bang out of nowhere," Ashido said. "Everything connected to the wall started going crazy, flashes and sparks everywhere!"

"By the time I'd figured out a way up there, it looked like you were about to explode," Uraraka said. "I tried calling for you but you were way too out of it. I honestly didn't know how long you could keep that up without seriously hurting yourself, so I went back down and tried to get help."

"And in stepped the hero of the day," Sero said, taking an exaggerated bow.

"Would've just been easier to go to the staff dorms and gotten Aizawa, you know," Bakugou grumbled.

"Seriously guys, I'm still not following," Kaminari said. "How'd you pull me out of there without getting turned into crispy chicken?"

"Remember that little battery thingie we were building last week during our science period?" Kirishima said.

Kaminari nodded, though confused with where this was going.

"We were supposed to use aluminum that day for our batteries, but Midoriya and me kept running out of that stuff like every five minutes," Sero said, "so I figured, 'hey, I'm pretty sure I've seen copper tape at the hardware store before, can't I try making some of that stuff?'"

"So how'd that go?" Kaminari asked.

"Well…" Sero turned to the wall opposite them, arms raised. He shot out two strips of reflective tape from his elbows, grinning proudly at his work.

"Woah, impressive man," he congratulated.

"Thanks, though I got some help from Yaoyorozu to figure it out."

"We done gawking over tape yet?" Bakugou said.

Sero detached the tape and absentmindedly rolled it up as he talked. "Okay, so last night when Uraraka came down looking for help-"

"Last night? How long have I been out?!"

"It's Thursday morning, we're on our lunch break right now," Ashido told him.

Kaminari suddenly remembered that Uraraka was still in her pjs. Had she stayed with him the whole night?

"Alright, so Uraraka came down looking for help and gave us the low-down on what was going on," Sero said. "I went back to the roof with her, and with a little help from her anti-gravity quirk I shot some of this tape past you and detached it before I could get shocked. I tried to get it close enough to redirect some of the electricity away from you-or at least enough so I could pull you outta there."

"Though I guess you guys kinda overdid it with the redirecting, huh?" Ashido asked. "I was talking with Recovery Girl a while ago and she mentioned something about all that sudden lack of energy being the reason you were out cold."

"Could've been worse, man," Kirishima said.

The school bell rung out in the hall, signalling the end of lunch and interrupting their conversation.

Bakugou growled. "Great, now we're late. Maybe next time you'll actually have the common sense not to go out alone during a fucking thunderstorm and risk getting yourself killed." He turned and marched out the door without another word. Though Kaminari could have sworn he saw his expression soften a bit as he left.

"We should get going too," Kirishima said. "Get some rest, Pikachu, we'll stop by later if you're still stuck here."

"Yeah, but don't get too comfy," Sero said.

"And make sure to text me when RG lets you leave," Ashido said.

They closed the door behind them, but Uraraka hadn't moved an inch. If anything, she'd simply yawned and seemed to settle down even more in her seat.

"Aren't you...gonna go to class with them?" Kaminari asked.

"I think I have a cold coming up, so I'm just gonna take a break here for another while," Uraraka said. "Besides, Aizawa wanted there to be someone keeping an eye on you to make sure you didn't do anything crazy."

 _Should be grateful or offended?_ he wondered.

"So how are you holding up?" she asked. "Can't imagine what it must feel like to be struck by lightning."

"It's pretty interesting," Kaminari said. "It was like my body was exploding, but not really, and the entire time I could feel my muscles bursting with stored electricity just waiting to be used."

To be quite honest Uraraka looked slightly terrified.

"Though I guess that's not really a fair point of reference considering my body's pretty much _made_ to withstand higher wattages. You'd probably be burnt to a crisp in less than a second."

And that's when the color completely left her face. "H-how much wattage can you _take?_ "

He tried to remember the meetings with his quirk counselor as a kid. "I don't know, actually. I haven't really had a way to measure my maximum capacity, though I'm pretty sure I can easily go over the one-million mark."

"That's insane," she whispered.

"You think _my_ quirk is nuts? Wait till you hear how many miles of tape Sero's tried making in a single shot."

Uraraka started laughing, tears prickling her eyes. "What did we ever do to win the quirk lottery? We're all freaks, but I guess that's a good thing."

Kaminari smirked. Something about Uraraka calling all of them freaks in such a lighthearted way made him feel a little less bad about his pitiful situation. He gave Midoriya a run for his money when it came to self-destructive quirks, but that was precisely why he was still student and not a licensed sidekick yet. Finding a balance between power and restraint was an obstacle Kaminari was still on his way to achieving, but that didn't mean it was impossible.

"You're not nervous right now," Uraraka said. The statement caught Kaminari off guard.

"What gave you that impression?"

"You start sparking up whenever you're nervous, but you haven't been doing that since you woke up."

He recalled all the times he'd accidentally frizzed his neighbors' hair right before a test. How he'd always have to concentrate on not shocking whoever it was he was flirting with. Yesterday's Heroics activity.

Maybe that was the connection he was failing to make. Maybe the solution was to start trusting what he was doing and stop doubting every little thing.

 _You're better at keeping it under control than you think, Denki_

Maybe the way to keep himself from hurting other people near water was to stop _worrying_ about hurting other people near water. His quirk was his to control so long as he was determined to keep that control.

Several weeks later, Class 1A was spending their summer at a remote forest hours away from campus. They'd all learned and grown so much since the attack on USJ, and had progressed by leaps and bounds since they'd first enrolled.

From the first day this trip was meant to put their quirks to the test and stretch them to new lengths. There was no room for hesitation, only action. Although Kaminari would be among those select few not allowed to be a part of _all_ the action, he wasn't as afraid of lagging behind as he used to be.

When Kaminari and the others found out that they were going to visit the baths later that afternoon, he was more than happy to join his friends for some well-deserved relaxation.

* * *

 **My first fic for this fandom!**

 **I woke up at about 3am last night thinking about all the potential character interactions we're regularly being deprived of, and said "hey, I wonder how a Kaminari & Uraraka team up would work out?" Well, here we are over 4k words later. This came out way longer than I'd originally planned, *cough* Bakusquad hospital meeting *cough*, but I think I like the direction it took. Though I think I should've fleshed out that last bit a little more if I'm being frank.**

 **The technical stuff about electricity and conductivity is probably horribly inaccurate, but I haven't touched a science textbook in years and to be quite honest not even the manga has it's shit together when it comes to other stuff that is/isn't plausible. (I'm looking at you, overworked Half-Hot Half-Cold quirk and apparently non-existent laws of thermodynamics.)**

 **This was in no way meant to be a Kirishima/Uraraka fic but I mean do whatever floats your boat buddy, I'm not stopping you.**

 **Reviews are always appreciated! (but I can't guarantee I'll be able to answer back to all of them)**


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